12 Ways Your Relationship Can Hurt Your Health

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Feel-good hormones

Sex isn't the only type of physical contact that can lower stress and improve health. In a 2004 study of 38 couples, University of North Carolina researchers found that both men and women had higher blood levels of oxytocina hormone believed to ease stress and improve moodafter hugging. The women also had lower blood pressure post-hug, and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

"These types of caring behaviors are so important: a touch on the arm, holding hands, a rub on the shoulder," Troiani says. "It only takes a few seconds of contact to stimulate those hormones and to help overcome stress and anxiety."